RELIGION, OR AT LEAST JEWISH religion, and certainly a root cause of religion’s comfort, appeal and danger, is simply and little more than people doing what they like to do in the way they like and feel compelled to do it.
Category: Life
Each moment is different. Here are some of mine.
Pithyism #3 up, 3 down
WOULDN’T YOU RATHER SEE A good game than a great hit?
(Derived from a conversation on a public lament for baseball players on steroids.) (Yes, I said for.)
Pithyism #108
WITH THE ADVENT OF BLOGGING, men of letters have become men of keystrokes.
How To Wash The Dishes
CLEAN DISHES NOT ONLY LOOK nice, they’re more healthy to eat from. Everyone has their own special method for this daily (or twice-daily) chore, and I’ve found this one to be most efficient in terms of time and water savings:
YOU WILL NEED:
– Large or divided sink
– Drain rack
– Dirty dishes
– Dishwashing soap (I like good ol’ yellow-bottled Crystal White for its inexpensivity and universality)
– Rubber gloves
– Sponge with one soft-scrub side
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Pithyism #Lazy Eight
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW how much you don’t know, tell a young child it can ask you anything.
Gritty Comfortoir
AND AFTER ALL IS SAID and done, and the horrible truth revealed
The bodies taken away, the last question answered
Comes William S Burroughs
(the gravelly graandpa who’s done things the grownups won’t let you ask him about).
“Interdimensional Alka Seltzer,” he says, proffering a grey fizzing mug,
and sits down beside you.
You take the cup.
He speaks volumes with his eyes
(they’ve seen it all, long before you were born)
but his mouth only says
what you wish it always wouldn’t:
“That’s just the way it is, Out Here.”
Pithyism #O
FAMILY’S WHO YOU EAT WITH. (Conclusion drawn after viewing the final scene of “Safe.” Those who know, know.)
Rethinking “Privacy”
RECENTLY, ONE OF MY FAVORITE blogs switched their commenting software from one which featured anonymous “handles” to one which can also link readers under their real names. It has caused me to rethink what I thought I took for granted about privacy — and explain why I now post solely under my real name.
In 1996, I was irate with a local politician who had left a “How’m I Doing?” flyer on our door. I told her exactly how I thought she was doing, and was about to toss it in the mail, when Ann pointed out that I hadn’t signed my name to it.
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What I Stand, For
HAVING JUST RECEIVED ORDERS FROM Fearless Leader to define my principles in 106 characters or less and then disperse them yea seedlike to the multitudes, I replied as follows:
Clearer thinking. Don’t litter. Say “please” and “thank you” and mean it. And stop killing the children.
Go ye now and do likewise. It’s what he’d want you to do.
Am “I” The Only One?
IN THIS ELECTRONIC ME-FIRST age, it is both rare and a point of honor never to begin a blog post with “I.” (Nitpickery note: I mean the word and concept, not the letter. Yeesh.) Not that I’m not tempted — but it’s too easy, too prevalent (for my tastes) and symptomatic of what I find least attractive about Lower North American pop culture.
There is a blogger who epitomizes what I’m talking about, and whose (apparently non-ironic) advice for Internet success is “Tap into narcissism.” She makes an interesting point, but I think that only produces a pile of people shouting “Lookit me! Lookit! Lookit!” instead of offering something interesting.
I don’t want my art to be narcissistic; I’d rather have it said about me “Who is this guy?” than “Who does this guy think he is?” Better still would be, “What a great story! Who wrote it? And are there more?”
“Judaism As Art”
or, There and Back Again Without Leaving
(BECAUSE OF WORDPRESS, I’M REPUBLISHING this 2002 piece — it works better as a “post” than as a “page” — and although my kippa-wearing has become a bit less pronounced of late it still reflects my approach to finding a place in Judaism. If you’re not hot for apologetics or manifesti, you have my permission to read something else.)
Despite that I’ve worn a yarmulke most of the time since 2000, I don’t define myself as Orthodox. Or Reform. Or, for that matter, as Conservative, Reconstructionist, Renewal or otherwise adjectivally Jewish.
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The Two Hardest Words To Say
“HELP ME.”